Creating Grievances
How Radical Right Parties Undermine Local Public Goods Provision

DVPW 2024, Göttingen

Tim Wappenhans

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

September 26, 2024

Motivation

RRPs and grievances

Christian Lüth
AfD press spokesperson 2013-2020

The worse things get for Germany, the better it is for the AfD.

Lüth
Christian Lüth, ©dpa

Preview

Research Question

Do RRPs actively try to create grievances
by obstructing local public goods provision?

Design

  • DiD & qual. interviews
  • 400 German counties
  • 2010 - 2019

Results

  • less spending on local infrastructure
  • mechanism: strategic obstruction

Theory

Geographies of discontent

Local public goods

Strategic obstructionism

  • opposition stimying policymaking
  • mostly studied in US but present in Europe (Bell 2018)
    • proposals, amendments, time-consuming voting…

Argument

Obstructing local public goods provision

  • strategic incentive
  • institutional opportunity
  • vote-seeking strategy
    • make populist message resonate

Data

The case: German counties

Institutional setting

Estimation

Data

  • 400 counties, 2010-2019
  • 3890 county*years
  • outcome: county real investment p.c. (Wegweiser Kommune)
  • treatment: AfD in council treatment cohorts

Design

  • staggered DiD
  • no conditioning on covs
  • SE clustered at county level

Results

Event study

Aggregated ATT

Mechanism

Is this the AfD?

Semi-structured interviews

  • local politicians across political spectrum
  • veterans experiencing change
  • focus on members in finance committee
  • data generation ongoing

Qualitative evidence

Head of finance committee, Hesse

They probably introduce the highest numbers of proposals. And that is for a small to medium caucus, mind you. […] Their proposals are annoying. Because they insist to debate them, every single time. And this costs time and nerves, of course.

  • straining scarce council resources
    • strategic obstructionism creating bureaucratic backlog

Alternative explanations

Other mechanisms

  • Complicated bargaining
    • too many parties complicate legislative procedures
  • Electoral threat
    • parties accomodate fiscally conservative challenger

Compound treatments

  • simultaneous change on state level

Alternative outcomes

Placebo treatment: Liberal FDP

Compound treatment

Takeaway 🥡

Takeaway 🥡

Creating grievances

  • 30 euros p.c. less spending on local infrastructure
    (8% decrease for median county)
  • strategic obstructionism ✅

Alternative explanations

  • complicated bargaining ❌
  • electoral threat ❌
  • compound treatment ❌

Next steps

  • collecting more interviews
  • field survey among local politicians?



Hit me up

📬 tim.wappenhans@hu-berlin.de

🌐 timwappenhans.com

🐦 @TimWapps

References

Bell, Lauren C. 2018. “Obstruction in Parliaments: A Cross-National Perspective.” The Journal of Legislative Studies 24 (4): 499–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2018.1544694.
Cremaschi, Simone, Paula Rettl, Marco Cappelluti, and Catherine E. De Vries. 2022. “Geographies of Discontent: How Public Service Deprivation Increased Far-Right Support in Italy.” OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/5s2cu.
Hobolt, Sara, James Tilley, and Susan Banducci. 2013. “Clarity of Responsibility: How Government Cohesion Conditions Performance Voting.” European Journal of Political Research 52 (2): 164–87. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2012.02072.x.
Mudde, Cas, and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser. 2017. Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Ziller, Conrad, and Sara Wallace Goodman. 2020. “Local Government Efficiency and Anti-Immigrant Violence.” The Journal of Politics 82 (3): 895–907. https://doi.org/10.1086/707399.

Appendix

Treatment cohorts Main

Treatment cohorts Main

Treatment cohorts Main

Treatment cohorts Main

Treatment cohorts Main